An Earl’s Broken Heart by Ella Edon
Chapter One
Diana took a long sip from her teacup. Her nervousness from hours before was slowly being replaced with relief. She could always tell if a performance had gone well by the look on people’s faces. Tonight, they looked shocked when she had started singing. That was a good sign. It meant that, in one way or another, she had exceeded their expectations.
A knock sounded on her dressing room door, but before she had time to answer, the door swung open. She quickly pulled her dressing gown around her shoulders as the theatre manager, Mr. Solomon Caney, stepped into the room.
A man of forty years, Solomon Caney’s spectacles hung from a black cord around his neck. He had a large, aquiline nose and a gold fixture where a canine tooth ought to have been. He was a short man but wore platform shoes that gave him two inches in height he didn’t deserve. His cravat was deep burgundy, and his tailcoat of the same colour extended to his calves. The gold pocket-watch visible from his waist pocket was one of several gaudy accessories, and the insufferable half smirk on his lips carried the smug belief that he was a man of means.
When he spoke, his breath carried the musk of whiskey and onions. “You were fantastic tonight,” he said smiling.
He looked at her with the appraising eyes of a veteran pawnbroker appraising a golden necklace.
Diana drew the dressing gown closer around herself. “Thank you.”
“I need a performance like that out of you every night,” he said as he produced a small coin pouch.
Diana accepted the payment and frowned. She could tell from the weight alone that she had been underpaid. Heavily underpaid. “This is less than we agreed, Mr. Caney.”
“And more than you deserve, Miss Brook. You must be a fool if you think I would pay you that for just singing. You’re a pretty girl and a decent singer, but you’re not half as pretty as you think. If I step out into the street and toss two coppers in the air, there would be a dozen girls just as pretty and talented as you grovelling at my feet before the coins hit the ground. They’d be willing to do more to get on that stage too. Much more. If you want to get paid, you’re going to have get off your high horse and find a way to prove your value to me.”
Diana did not want to ask what he meant by that. She just wanted him out of her dressing room.
He stepped towards her. “You’re many things, but you’re not stupid. You’re a clever girl. Clever enough to turn this into a real opportunity for yourself.”
She tried to move back, and he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She jerked back at his touch, and the teacup slipped from her fingers, spun from her control, and shattered.
He glanced down at the shards of porcelain. “That’s coming out of your next pay. If I were you, I wouldn’t be so…inhospitable. This business is all about give and take.”
He leaned in closer and made a sucking sound with his teeth. “And I know you’ve got a lot more to give.”
Diana spasmed. This time there was no doubt what he meant. Some part of her wanted to give him a slap. To wipe that oil-slick smile from his face. She couldn’t do that, not with this being her only means of making the money she needed to care for her sister, Eliza. She gritted her teeth and lifted her chin, swallowing her disgust.
“Thank you,” she said, tucking the coins into her dressing gown pocket. She then stooped to pick up the shards from the ground.
He chuckled like a gleeful schoolboy and turned to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow night. Wear something nice.”
Diana waited for the door to close behind him and immediately turned the key in the lock, letting out a heavy sigh when it was done. Just like that, all the joy and elation from her performance had leaked out of her like wine from a pierced wineskin. She stared into the dressing room mirror. Don’t weep, Diana. No matter what you do, don’t weep. Her lip quivered, but she didn’t let the tears fall. Solomon intended to bend her until she broke, but he would not have his way of things. She gritted her teeth. Without the pay from the theatre, she couldn’t afford the laudanum, which gave her sister relief from the incessant pain that had plagued her for the last year. As loathsome as Solomon Caney was, Diana would not let him stop her from doing what needed to be done.
When she was dressed to leave, another knock came at her door. She remastered herself before stepping up to it. “Who is it?”
A soft, chirpy voice replied, “It’s me.”
She smiled as she unlocked the door. Her friend Lydia appeared in the doorway, holding the most magnificently beautiful bouquet of flowers Diana had ever seen.
“Someone has a secret admirer,” Lydia said with a girlish smile as she hopped into the room.
Diana’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“A man asked me to give you these,” Lydia replied, handing over the flowers.
The soft, pleasant scent of orchids and lilies made her feel immediately more settled than she had been mere moments ago. She knew at a glance that this was no ten-penny arrangement. There were moonflowers in the bouquet. Even the most purse-friendly florist would only part with moonflowers at inordinate cost. They had to be imported from the Caribbean and stored in very particular conditions. Whoever her admirer was, he had given her an extremely generous gift.
She could barely find purchase on the words to speak. “What man?” she asked.
Lydia huddled close, taking the stool beside her. “A valet or a footman or some such. He refused to tell me who it’s from.”
Diana took the small note, embedded amongst the moonflowers.
‘Go forth and conquer, for the world is small and you are a giant. – Cee’
She gasped repeating the words to herselfand folded the note away. This incredible gesture of kindness had given her the kernel of encouragement that she did not know she needed. Like a morsel of bread in the age of starvation, it nourished her more than she expected. Despite every effort, she found herself finally succumbing to the tears.
“Aww, Diana, don’t cry. You’ll make me cry too,” Lydia said, gathering her into an embrace.
Diana wiped the tears away and smiled. “I guess there are some nice people out there.”
Lydia snorted. “A few.”
They laughed together and allowed themselves to share gossip from the night’s performance. How Lydia had almost missed her cue, how Solomon was an utter wart and how they would soon both be centre stage at finer theatres than this.
When the gossip was well and truly done, Diana bid her goodbye and made her way home.
She lived on King Street, a street where its greatest claim to fame came from being connected to St. James Street and, by extension, the theatre of the same name. The name was incredibly ironic. Of all the streets in London, few were as indubitably unfit for kings as King Street was. Unfit for Diana as well if she told herself the truth. However, hard times meant for undesirable measures, and she was well in the throes of her hardest time. She felt uncomfortable carrying such beautiful flowers through a neighborhood so unabashedly ugly. Some things just didn’t belong in the squalor.
At this hour of the night, King’s Street possessed a subtle danger from the desperate. From nothing-to-lose cutpurses and men who were far in their cups. Any person who came within touching distance was likely trying to pick your pocket or cut your purse. She walked with the quiet hurry of a cat in a dog’s neighborhood.
As soon as Diana ducked into her tenement, she darted up the stairs. She quietly unlocked the door to her apartment and nudged it open with her toe. A dull lantern light from the only bedchamber indicated that her sister was awake.
“Diana?” Eliza called out, hearing the door shut.
Diana stepped into the room. “It’s me.”
Eliza sat up. She was holding a dull grey dress that she had plainly been trying to mend. When her eyes caught sight of the flowers, she pushed back her spectacles, and her lips twisted in a mischievous smile. “Have you found a lover at the opera, dear sister?”
Diana laughed. “A secret admirer, it appears.”
Eliza put the dress aside and moved towards her. The movements were weak and laboured, that of a girl beaten down by illness and infirmity. It broke Diana’s heart seeing her sister so weak. Eliza had always been the stronger of the two of them, and now she looked much older and weaker. She stared into Eliza’s eyes, their mother’s eyes. Diana thought them windows to her staying power. Eliza still bore some strength, but she had been fighting a long time now.
“Have you taken your laudanum?” Diana asked.
Eliza frowned. “It’s run out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Diana snapped, incredulous.
Eliza stared up at the ceiling, refusing to meet Diana’s eye. “It’s expensive, Diana. I don’t want to be a burden on you. I’m getting back to work.”
It made Diana’s heart sink. That was why Eliza was mending the dress. She was trying to make some money. Eliza was like their mother in that way. Some women wait for a hero, others wait for a sword. Eliza was the type to wait for a sword. But she couldn’t be a warrior now, not when she could barely lift a weapon. Diana had to be her warrior and get them through this rough patch unscathed.
Diana pulled her sister into an embrace. “You could never be a burden on me. The only thing I care about is that you are happy and healthy. Nothing else matters.”
She gripped her sister by the shoulders. “Good thing I got these flowers. There are moonflowers in there. I can get good money for the moonflowers and orchids at the market.”
“Don’t do that. They’re so pretty,” Eliza whispered.
“You’re far prettier. Especially when you’re strong and healthy. I won’t have any argument on it. Tomorrow I’m going to get you more laudanum, Eliza.”
Eliza sighed, adjusted her skewed spectacles, and buried her face in the gap between Diana’s head and shoulder. They stayed like that for what felt like a piece of eternity. Neither of them cried; at least not outwardly. That was the strength of their sisterhood; they shared both their pain and their joy.
When morning came, Diana did get good money for the flowers. It hurt to sell them, but they were able to pay for her sister’s treatment with some left over. For a month at least, they would be alright. As a reminder of that beautiful gesture from the mysterious “Cee,” Diana kept a single yellow orchid. Later, when she arrived at the opera house for the night’s performance, she retrieved the note and reread it. Go forth and conquer, for the world is small, and you are a giant.
Like a dead candlewick pricked with flame, those words stirred something within her. Sitting there, preparing to go on stage, she made a decision. No more suffering. No more late nights for next-to-nothing wages. Something had to change. But she wasn’t going to find a hero; she was going to find a sword.